


New Blood

by solnishka1927



Category: Far Cry Primal
Genre: Action/Adventure, Coming of Age, Gratuitous Wenja Language, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-10-25 13:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solnishka1927/pseuds/solnishka1927
Summary: 15 years have passed since Takkar conquered Oros. A new generation of Wenja is reaching maturity, including Belda, the crippled daughter of Karoosh; Ull, the son of the Udam chief of the same name; and Kaddar and Dakkar, the sons of Takkar and Sayla. But the Izila and the Udam have their heirs as well, and a new battle for Oros is on the horizon.





	1. Kuspa (n-night)

It was another one of  _those_  nights.

Belda crouched on the icy rocks next to the stream that burbled through the village, her crutch wedged into a crevice to help balance her. It was autumn now, and the wind had fangs that chewed through her furs and chilled her skin. She shivered, and looked up into the sky at the innumerable hearth fires of the spirit world.

In the depths of the dark forest surrounding the village, wolves howled their hunting-calls. In Takkar's cave, Ulfa sobbed in agony as the skullfire raged behind her eyes. Belda listened to them both, wrapping her leopard-fur tighter around her and feeling the weight of the shell bracelet around her wrist as she did so. Ulfa and her brother Ull were the only not-Udam to wear such bracelets. No matter how much the Wenja in the neighboring villages liked to whisper otherwise, the siblings were Wenja too; Tensay had made cuts in their arms and mixed Takkar's blood into theirs to make them his children.

They were  _Wenja_ , just like Belda, and her father Karoosh called Takkar his own brother, so that made Ulfa and Ull like Belda's own sister and brother, and they had played together as children, and—and—and—

Ulfa sobbed again, the sound rising into almost-scream, and her cave bear roared in anger at the sound of its master's pain. Belda could see the dark shape of the animal pacing to and fro along the outskirts of the village, too wild to come close to the village fires but too loyal to wander away into the night.

Ulfa was a fellow Wenja, and Belda could do nothing to help her.

Footsteps behind her. "Cold night," Ull rumbled. "Winter coming soon."

" _Hard_  night," Belda said, tearing her gaze away from the sky's fires. "Full of pain."

Ull's eyes gleamed in the moonlight beneath their heavy brow-ridges. He grunted an agreement and squatted next to her, huge and imposing next to Belda's smaller, slighter frame. The not-Udam was built like a boulder, with massive shoulders and a broad, hairy torso, his arms and legs as thick as tree trunks despite his youth.

"Tensay will give herbs soon," he said. "Make Ulfa sleep."

"Good." Belda wrapped her arms around herself and flinched as another high, wailing sob ripped through the village. The bear roared again. "I hurt too, inside, for Ulfa."

Ull sighed. "Me too," he admitted.

In Takkar's cave, Tensay started to chant: " _U_   _pawhaya, u pawhaya, u pawhaya hay pur_ …" and out of the corner of her eye Belda saw Ull's shoulders relax. The cries died into whimpers, then silence.

"It is done," Belda said at last, looking back up towards the sky fires. She touched the piece of red antler hanging by a cord around her neck, silently thanking the spirit of the tall elk for its possible intervention in Ulfa's pain. Maybe Ulfa's cave bear spirit wasn't strong enough to defeat the skullfire, even with the help of Tensay's herbs and chants. Maybe it took multiple spirits to defeat it, even for a single night.

Maybe sitting awake and watching the sky fires helped after all, even just a little bit. Belda liked to think so.

She and Ull sat in silence for a time, listening to the howling of the wolves. At the edge of the village, the bear settled down to sleep in a clump of bracken. Belda watched it, knowing the animal wasn't safe to approach without Ulfa standing nearby to calm its distrust of Wenja. To be a Beast Master... Takkar was one, and Ulfa was one, and Takkar's son Dakkar was meditating and preparing to take the spirit journey to become one, but Belda knew she could never tame a beast. She could look inside herself and see plainly the urge to reach for a spear rather than soothe with empty hands if she ever crossed paths with a wolf or cave lion.

 _If_  she had a spear. All she had was a crutch. And if she was thinking of her crutch—it was time to go back to the hut and sleep. Belda adjusted her leopard-fur and shoved her crutch under her arm, using it as a support to heave herself to her feet. Ull sprang up beside her, quick as a deer in a way that nobody who saw his huge, heavy-limbed frame would ever expect. The wood-and-bone crutch slipped on the icy rocks, and Belda swayed dangerously before grabbing Ull's arm for support. It was like grabbing onto a mountain; he was  _that_  strong. As strong as his Udam birth-father of the same name, which made the older Wenja nervous.

Ull let Belda steady herself, and kept his hand on her arm until she had hobbled onto firmer ground. "Little  _samipadi_ ," he said, smiling. "Always running to catch up to other children."

"Still little," Belda said, smiling in turn, "Still  _samipadi_." Once, the name Half-Foot had stung like rock salt in a wound, a symbol of being too slow and broken to be interesting to play games with. Now it was just a name, the same as Wogah being called 'Crafter' or Urki being called 'Thinker'. Only Karoosh hated to hear it.

"Sleep good, Ull," Belda said.

"You sleep good too," Ull said, and hesitated. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, fidgeting with the two boar tusks he wore in a cuff around his arm. What made him want to call on the strength of his spirit?

"I hunt tomorrow," he admitted eventually.

"Good hunting," Belda wished him politely. She was no huntress; being Half-Foot prevented her from being anything but a hindrance to any Wenja hunting party. Ull wasn't going to ask her to join him, so why bother telling her?

"I made a... spear-sling."

"Spear... sling?"

"It throws spear far for only little strength. Come. I show you."

"You want show me your 'spear'?" Belda asked, snickering.

"No! No!" Ull's ears and face were red with embarrassment. "Weapon. Good weapon for hunting, I think. I use first time tomorrow. You come with me?"

Belda's eyes widened in surprise, and then she looked out into the forest where the wolves still howled. She had only gone beyond the village and its surrounding fields twice in her life—once with Tensay, since as a child she had nagged and begged him until he agreed to take her on an herb-gathering expedition, and once when she'd been crippled. Her dreams of being a warrior like her father had died with the rockslide that had trapped and crushed her foot, and she'd always assumed that that had been the end of any excitement she might have in her life.

"I must talk with Karoosh. But I want to see the spear-sling! I do! We hunt!" Her smile was making her face hurt. " _We_  hunt."

"Not for mammoth,  _samipadi_ ," Ull reminded her, but he was smiling too.

"Next time, maybe."

Ull snorted. "Sleep good," he said, then turned and walked up the hill towards Takkar's cave. Belda watched him weave his way between the huts with a soundless hunter's tread, knowing she couldn't replicate it—because she was  _samipadi_ , certainly, but also because she had never tried.  _Tomorrow_ , she thought, and kissed the piece of antler to thank the spirit of the tall elk for giving her this opportunity.

Belda went in the opposite direction of Ull to Karoosh's hut. She barely had to use her crutch at all; her foot hadn't borne weight while she had watched the sky fires and therefore wasn't painful, and her limp was hardly noticeable on even ground. She tried to walk silently like a hunter, moving slowly and deliberately and keeping to the shadows between the moonbeams—and tripped over a basket. It bounced into the wall of a hut, spilling a bunch of small animal hides and a necklace of polished bone beads. Belda stumbled and fell, slicing the heel of her left hand on the edge of a flint shard somebody had dropped. She hissed in pain, then licked the dirt out of the cut and spat the blood out. She gathered up the scattered items and set the basket aright, trying not to leave bloodstains on anything.

Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment as she stood up and walked normally the rest of the way to Karoosh's hut. The village was quiet and still in the aftermath of Ulfa's battle with the skullfire, however; maybe nobody had seen her.

Belda hesitated in front of the brown bear skin hanging over the entrance. Warm orange firelight glowed in the cracks between the edge of the fur and the wall of the hut: the fire hadn't been banked down to embers for the night. Was Karoosh still awake? She reached out and touched the edge of the fur, preparing to sweep it aside—but lightly, so that no movement could be seen from within. She hung there for a moment, suspended by indecision, then took a deep breath and ducked around the skin.

Karoosh was indeed awake. He sat in front of the fire, drinking from a clay bowl of meat broth with stewed wild carrots and garlic. His hair was gray now, his back stooped, his limbs aching with the first twinges of arthritis—but he was still a powerful warrior.

" _Smarka, Atta_ ," Belda said.

"No," Karoosh grunted.

"No?" Belda echoed. She went to the fox-skin bag hanging from the point of an antler-rack that spanned one wall. Inside, there were a variety of other skin bags made from the hides of small animals. She picked one and opened it. Here were dried yarrow leaves, picked during the summer. When applied to an injury they would help stop bleeding and strengthen a person's spirit to fight off wound-poison. Belda placed the leaves directly onto her cut, then dived into another bag for fresher comfrey leaves that still had a bit of moisture in them. She wrapped one over the injury and secured it in place with a leather strip.

"You will not hunt," Karoosh said. "You cannot throw a spear, shoot a bow, swing a club. When the wolf prowls, the rhino charges, you cannot run. You die. No."

"But I—"

" _No_."

Belda's shoulders slumped. She sat down on the opposite side of the fire, studying her father through the curtain of flames. He was avoiding looking at her the way he always did, focusing instead on the bowl and his food within it.

"I will not go alone," Belda said.

"You will not hunt with the Udam."

"He is  _Wenja_."

Karoosh's lip curled in a sneer, and Belda swallowed a sigh. She could remember a time when her warrior father had been happy. He had told her stories of the hunt for Mog who had killed his first child, whom he had dreamed of fighting alongside. That dream had been revived with her birth. Her first toys had been tiny spears and slings, and he had shown her the thrust, the throw, the charge. But Karoosh's dream had died for a second and final time when Belda had become  _samipadi_ , and his happiness had died with it. Now he often ranged far from the village, hunting down the last of the Udam in the north, and whatever grim satisfaction he took in their deaths didn't bring a smile to his face.

"I  _must_  hunt."

"No. Other Wenja, they must hunt. You weave baskets, tend plants for Roshani, watch children, cure leather, cook. You do many things, good things, but not hunt."

"I must hunt to be like you! Like mighty Karoosh, my  _pashtar_!" 

"You are not me! You never be me! I not... not..."

"Not Half-Foot?" Belda asked.

Karoosh drained the dregs of his bowl. "I sleep," he said, and retired to the pile of skins in a sheltered corner, far from the drafts near the doorway. He lay down with his back to her.

Belda opened her mouth, then shut it again. She chewed her lip, trying to think of the right thing to say, but then gave up; there was nothing she could do that would persuade Karoosh to change his decision. Belda moved through the rest of her evening chores, banking the fire down to embers that wouldn't need tending through the night and then eating the last of the stew out of the leather pot. She laid down in her own pile of furs to rest, setting her crutch next to her and pulling the leopard-fur up to her shoulders.

Tomorrow, since she would not hunt, she should find wood and leather to make sleeping platforms. With the onset of winter the ground would grow cold, and the chill would creep through a pile of furs and into the body. Belda's last thoughts before she fell asleep were of how many skins she would need to trade to find someone to cut wood for her outside the village.

Belda woke again just after dawn to the roaring of the cave bear. Ulfa was dead.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wenja Glossary
> 
> Pashtar — father  
> Samipadi — compound of "sami" (half/part) and "padi" (foot)  
> Smarka, Atta — hello (informal), dad/sir  
> U pawhaya hay pur — (imperative) cleanse/purify this fire
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of the fic! All Wenja-language dialogue is taken from the blog "Speaking Primal". I'm doing my best with the grammar, but I'm an utter novice at this so please notify me of any mistakes. I'd love to hear any comments, concerns, or speculations about what you think might happen in the following chapters.


	2. Chastas (n-grief/sorrow)

The cave bear roared.

Ull roared back.

The dawn streaked the eastern horizon with fingers of blood, and the young Wenja had smeared ashes over his face and hair in mourning. He stood outside the village gates with a spear, growling at the cave bear. It roared again, swinging its head from side to side in confusion and dismay as it sensed the absence of its master. Ull darted close, thrusting the spear towards the beast's small black eyes. It swatted the puny flint-tipped stick aside with a paw larger than Ull's head, snapping its jaws towards the torso of the tiny figure that dared to challenge it.

Ull dived away, feeling a puff of hot, rancid breath against his bare side. He rolled to his feet as the cave bear roared again, this time in anger. It reared up on its hind legs just as Ull charged. His spear caught the bear high in the chest, the flint point sinking through fur and skin and deep into the flesh—but it was not a mortal wound. The cave bear, now well within reach, raked its claws over Ull's shoulders and arms, snapping the spear like a twig. It knocked the Wenja hunter to the ground like he weighed no more than a child's plaything. It would have dropped down from its hind legs, bringing its forefeet onto Ull's chest and crushing his ribs and lungs, and then ripped his head off for good measure if it weren't for the sabre-tooth tiger that jumped on its back and sank its teeth into the bear's neck.

The tiger, the cub of the cub of the Bloodfang, knocked the cave bear off balance. It collapsed to one side, flailing its limbs and trying to roll and crush the tiger beneath its heavy back. Ull crawled out of the way as the two beasts fought, the tiger biting harder and harder as it held onto the bear's body with its claws. It managed to find one of the carotid arteries beneath the heavy layers of muscle and fat on the bear's neck. Bright blood spurted across the ground. The cave bear's struggles grew weaker, and then it became still.

"You  _fool_ ," Takkar said, his voice soft but full of anger.

Ull rolled onto his back and panted up at him, his eyes wild within the mask of ashes. The bear's claws had cut deep, and blood streaked down his arms.

"You want your spirit walk free? You want go to your sister?" Takkar demanded.

Ull licked his lips and opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He shook his head. Sayla, standing beside her mate, hissed in anger. Takkar put a hand on her arm for a moment, then helped his son to his feet.

"The bear..." Ull rasped. "The skin, for Ulfa..." He turned towards the carcass, fumbling in a pouch at his waist for a flint knife.

"I skin bear," Takkar said. "You go to Tensay."

Ull ignored him. The edge of the pouch kept slipping through his bloody fingers as he tried to open it. Takkar took it from him and tossed it aside, pulling out his own knife. He gently pushed his son in the direction of Tensay's hut. "Go," he ordered. Dakkar materialized out of the crowd that had gathered, darting to his hearth-brother's side to help him along. Sayla glared after them.

"Move, move," Dakkar said, and Belda jumped out of the way. She followed them to the shaman's hut, slipping through the doorway after them and settling into an unobtrusive corner. One of Tensay's two mates, Kella, gave her an exasperated look, but did nothing to shoo her away. Ull half sat, half collapsed onto a mat of woven reeds by the fire, his face a rictus of pain. No sound escaped his lips, however, and he remained sitting stolidly upright until Kella urged him to lie back.

Tensay, arthritic and slow in his advanced age, shuffled to Ull's side. He had lost most of the sight in his remaining eye and was on the edge of blindness—though exactly how close he was to that edge was a mystery he kept to himself. He probed at the wounds with gnarled, claw-like fingers, making the muscles in Ull's face twitch in pain.

"Marigold, in water," the shaman murmured.

Kella and Tensay's other mate worked together in silence, filling a leather pot with water from a yak bladder and then suspending it from a tripod over the fire. They took the dried heads of marigold flowers and stripped the petals, throwing them into the pot. Belda watched in rapt silence. The loudest noise was Ull's labored breathing.

" _Dugishtar Karoosh-s_ ," Tensay said, and Belda flinched back into her corner. "Come here."

Belda shuffled to the shaman's side on her knees. He turned his clouded eyes towards her, perhaps seeing her and perhaps not, perhaps seeing all the way within her to her spirit. Belda shifted uncomfortably and resisted the urge to touch her antler-point for reassurance. Tensay had  _given_  her that piece of antler; he took a dream-journey for every baby that survived its first eight days in this world, telling the great animal spirits of the new Wenja that needed protection and guidance, and returned with a token of whatever spirit decided to become the baby's guardian.

Ull breathed slowly and deeply, all of his concentration focused on each inhale and exhale to help manage the pain. His wounds continued to bleed, and both of Tensay's mates were preoccupied with retrieving various leaves, stems, and roots from bundles and pouches throughout the hut. Belda looked at the flow of blood seeping onto the mat, raised her hands, looked at Tensay, lowered them, looked at Ull, raised them again, then gave in. She put her hands over the worst of the claw marks covering her friend's arms and shoulders, squeezing until her knuckles went white as she tried to staunch the bleeding.

The cut on her hand was a bright point of pain beneath the pressure she was exerting, and the thin scab that had formed under the comfrey and yarrow leaves burst. Blood trickled out around the leather strip into Ull's wounds.  _We are sister-brother now_ , Belda thought.

"Geranium root," the shaman said, pointing to her hands, "Easier. But first we use water."

"The  _samipadi_  is not—" Kella began.

" _U tushisni!_ " Tensay hissed. Kella's jaws shut with an audible click.

"Why... geranium root?" Belda asked.

"You see," Tensay promised. "You see."

Kella used a deer skull as a cup to bring a mouthful of the marigold water to Tensay, who tasted it and nodded. She and Geldar, Tensay's other mate, used the water to flush out the wounds left by the cave bear's claws, which made the tendons in Ull's neck stand out. Belda sympathized with him; marigold, like yarrow, strengthened a Wenja's spirit to fight wound-poison, but it stung harder. Each stream of blood that was washed away quickened again, however, and Ull was pale beneath his mask of ashes. He was starting to tremble faintly.

"Now the root," Tensay whispered, and applied the dried and powdered geranium root himself. The flow of blood slowed to a sluggish ooze. Kella, Geldar, and Belda chewed comfrey leaves to a pulp and pushed them into the wounds, and then Kella covered them with bandages made of soft, absorbent rabbit-skin that were tied in place with leather thongs. Ull endured their ministrations in silence.

"Boar-spirit strong," Tensay mused aloud, chewing on a fingernail. "But not as strong as cave bear. But tiger-spirit..." he trailed off into silence, apparently thinking.

Ull let out a shuddering sigh. "Water," he croaked.

The only cups were made from skulls. Belda fetched water from the yak bladder, holding up Ull's head so he could drink. He drank one cupful, then another, then another, then another, then waved the skull away and sank back onto the blood-soaked mat with another sigh. Belda touched his neck and un-wounded points on his shoulders and wrists, noting the tension there.

"How can we stop pain?" Belda asked. Willow bark tea was the only painkiller she knew, and its effects were mild; it blunted the edge of a headache or the cramps she experienced during her bleeding time, but not much more.

"Thorn-apple," Tensay said. "It brings sleep, dreams—"

" _No_ ," Ull snarled. "You make Ulfa sleep with thorn-apple, you make her spirit walk, you—"

" _U tushisni!_ " the shaman hissed again, crouching down on his forearms. The wolf headdress he wore seemed to be prowling the interior of the hut as the old Wenja shuffled through his collection of plant and animal parts, finally selecting a handful of dried leaves from an otter-skin pouch. He dipped an Udam skull into the simmering pot of marigold water, then added the leaves and swirled them with a finger. He brought the cup to Ull's face.

"Breathe deep, no drink," Tensay instructed. Ull did so, and after several tense minutes Belda could see his body relaxing. When his eyelids started to droop Tensay took his concoction and turned to Belda, who checked herself from recoiling just in time.

"Henbane," the shaman said. "Breathe for sleep, drink for spirit journey."

He offered her the cup. Belda eyed it for a heartbeat, then shook her head. Tensay chuckled.

"You come hungry for knowing,  _shartahalchi_. You full now?"

Belda's hand flew to the antler-point. He was addressing her spirit, not her, and it would be a betrayal of the tall elk to lie or evade the question. "No," she said, "Always hungry."

Tensay's clouded eyes seemed to be boring within her and probing her deepest secrets. With his powers he could doubtless divine her thoughts, but it was still polite to say them aloud. "Why..." Belda's voice cracked and failed. She tried again: "Why Ulfa die?"

"Ulfa ask for walk free, with thorn-apple," Tensay said. "Ulfa ask to drink deep for endless spirit journey. She  _ask_ walk free of skullfire."

Belda thought for several long moments, trying to imagine a pain so great that a person would want their spirit to walk free. She remembered Ulfa's screaming from the previous night, and shuddered. It was better not to think about it.

Tensay heaved himself to his feet with the help of his staff, groaning in pain as his arthritis sank claws into his joints. Kella and Geldar darted close to help him, pulling him the last of the way upright by the elbows. The shaman waved them away and looked at Belda. "I prepare for Ulfa burial. You help. Come."

Belda shuffled to her crutch and used it to push herself upright, then followed Tensay through the doorway. She blinked hard in the bright sunlight outside of the dim, smoky hut, squinting her eyes, and saw that someone had brought Ulfa's body and left it lying in the dirt outside the hut. Tensay hissed in disapproval when he saw how the corpse's limbs had been allowed to flop haphazardly over the ground, rather than arranged neatly with the legs together and straight and the hands folded over the chest. A fly crawled over one cheek.

"Wash body," the ancient shaman said. "I make paint."

"How—" Belda began, but Tensay was already shuffling back inside his hut. She stared at the skin covering the doorway, then huffed and tied her braids back from her face with a leather strip. The other villagers avoided looking at her as she made her way back to Karoosh's hut and retrieved two poles made from birch saplings that had had their branches trimmed away. They didn't greet her as they passed by while Belda took a cured elk-skin and lashed it between the poles by the legs, making a travois, and refused to meet her eyes as she dragged it back to Tensay's hut and tied Ulfa's body onto it. They didn't do this because she was  _samipadi_ —Wogah had only one arm, and was the most respected and sought-after craftsperson in the village—but because she was helping in Ulfa's burial preparations.

The more Wenja assisted the family members in preparing the dead person for the next world, the more well-liked that person had been. Ulfa, though she had been respected for being a Beast Master, had had few friends among her father's people. So Belda dragged the travois through the village alone, unable to use her crutch. The stump of her foot was bearing even more weight than usual, and by the time she reached the village gates she was limping badly and wincing in pain with each step. There was a part of her that wanted to drop the travois and walk away—it was hard, painful work, and she had never been close with the older woman—but Tensay, who had called her  _shartahalchi_ , had commanded her, and Ull, her friend, was unable to do it himself.

Belda dragged the travois through the gates and down the hill, past Roshani's fields of emmer wheat to where the river basked in the cool autumn sunshine. At the treeline there was a row of cairns where other Wenja had been buried. Takkar and Dakkar were at work here with digging sticks, adding another deep trench to the line.

" _Smarka!_ " Belda called. Dakkar looked up and wiped sweat from his face. He raised his hand in greeting, but then returned to work next to his father. It was odd, to see the great Beast Master and chieftain of the Wenja digging. Normally all the young men and half the young women would be clamoring to do it for him, but today he was alone except for his son. There was no-one else here except Belda.

Belda dragged the travois the rest of the way to the river. She released it with a sigh of relief and flexed her hands, then took off her foot-wrappings and let her foot and stump squelch into the cold mud at the water's edge. She knelt next to the travois and regarded the dead not-Udam.

Belda's memories of Ulfa were mostly in tandem with her memories of Ull. She could remember the older girl allowing her into Takkar's cave after she had become  _samipadi_ , showing her the Izila masks and Daysha stones her father had collected throughout Oros in-between playing with Ull. Ulfa was seven or eight winters older than both of them, and had been quiet and serious as she minded the two younger children that none of their age-mates had wanted to play with—Belda because she was injured and slow, and Ull because he looked like an Udam.

When she had tamed the cave bear, Tensay had held a ceremony declaring her Beast Master so that the other villagers would actually say her name with something other than naked distrust, but what Belda remembered was Ulfa forcing the bear to lie down and allow Belda to crawl onto its back so that it could carry her in a circle around Roshani's fields. Not long after that, Belda and Ull were old enough to not need someone to watch over them while they played, and Ulfa had withdrawn the majority of her presence from Belda's life. She had been patient and sometimes even kind, but distant, and Belda couldn't remember her smiling.

Maybe it hadn't been only the pain of the skullfire that had made Ulfa want her spirit to walk. Maybe it had been the other Wenja too, who had never welcomed or truly accepted her. Belda's hands clenched into fists at the thought, but she couldn't make herself stop thinking it.

The cold river-water was making her legs numb. Belda took off Ulfa's foot-wrappings, cupping water with her hands and pouring it over the dead woman's feet. Her skin was a pale pinkish-brown next to Belda's earth-dark flesh. Her nails had been trimmed prior to dying, and there was no dirt under them. Belda moved up to the rabbit pelts that were tied around Belda's legs with leather thongs, undoing them and setting them aside.

" _Smarka_ ,  _samipadi_ ," Wogah said. Belda jumped, and the crafter cackled.

"Ulfa climbed as good as Piss Man," the elder declared. "Ulfa got nice feathers for Wogah. Take, take!" He thrust a handful of rare red eagle feathers into Belda's hands, then walked away. Belda set the feathers aside, rinsed off Ulfa's legs, then undid the woman's wolf-fur vest and washed her torso.

" _Smarkaka_ , Belda," Gorlah said. This time, Belda had been keeping an eye out for visitors and didn't startle. The woman hung back a few arm's lengths, reluctant to come close and refusing to look at Ulfa's body. She was heavily pregnant and kept one hand on her swollen belly. "Why you wash it?"

"Spirit of  _dugishtar Takkar-s_  walk free last night. I help with burial."

Out of the corner of her eye, Belda watched Gorlah wince. "You liked Udam?"

"I liked Ulfa."

Gorlah shook her head and walked away without giving a gift. Belda cleaned Ulfa's fingernails and ears, then abandoned her body as she ranged up and down the riverbank searching for a particular plant. Eventually she found what she was looking for: soaproot. She hadn't thought to bring a digging stick and so unearthed it with her hands, then brought it back to Ulfa's body. She used a fist-sized rock to mash the roots on top of a flat stone so that they released a cleansing, sudsy substance. She worked it into Ulfa's long red-brown hair, then rinsed it out.

" _Smarkaka_ ," a new visitor said.

" _Smarkaka_ , Srorka," Belda replied. Srorka squatted down next to her, running the strap of her sling through her hands. She was tall for a woman, with hair as dark as the wings of her raven-spirit that fell almost to her knees. It was kept contained through an intricate system of braids and bone beads, and had an entire bird's worth of feathers worked into it. Any Wenja who cared at all for their hair envied her, and Belda was no exception.

"Ulfa killed the stripe wolf that killed my  _brashtar_. She was good Beast Master."

Srorka gave Belda two strands of beads, one made from nodules of mammoth ivory and one from deer teeth, then left.

Belda started to braid Ulfa's hair, securing the plaits into place with leather strips. Ulfa had never been interested in decorating her hair or clothes; everything about her had been unobtrusive and utilitarian. Would the fact that she was receiving few death-gifts have bothered her? Belda wasn't sure. When her mother, Grelda, had died of the spitting-blood sickness, her burial tunic had been so decorated with shells, beads, and feathers that nobody could see the leather it was all secured to.

" _Smarkaka_ , Belda," Roshani said, grunting in discomfort as his knees crackled when he knelt down next to her.

" _Smarka_ , Commander," Belda replied, grinning. The former Izila snorted.

"I hear Ulfa drank thorn-apple," Roshani said, looking down at the body.

"Yes. Her spirit—"

"Walked free." He looked sad, and rubbed the shell bracelet that Sayla had given him many winters ago. Belda let him sit with the body in silence as she finished braiding Ulfa's hair. As she started to load the body and death-gifts onto the travois, Roshani presented her with a wreath made from woven reeds and purple aster flowers.

"Izila wear on the head, for mating ceremony. Ulfa never have mate, but... is pretty." He clasped her hand for a moment, then stood and walked away.

Belda placed the wreath with the other death-gifts, re-tied her foot-wrappings, then started the long, arduous journey back to Tensay's hut while dragging the travois. This time, she was going uphill and her stump already ached. She labored, limping badly and panting, up to the village gates, and saw Karoosh crouched in front of their hut making a new spear.

" _Atta!_ " she called.

Karoosh looked up, saw the speaker, and then returned his gaze to his work. He frowned in concentration, and the words 'help me' died in Belda's throat. She lowered her head so that she could only see the ground in front of her and focused on taking one step at a time, gritting her teeth and trying to ignore the fire in her stump. She had lost the toes and a good bit of the meat of her right foot in the rockslide that had crippled her, but the heel and a jagged lump of flesh covered in scar tissue remained. She  _could_  walk without her crutch. And she  _could_  drag Ulfa's body uphill through the village. She could do those things; being  _samipadi_  didn't mean Belda was weak and useless, no matter what Karoosh thought.

" _Shartahalchi_  late," Tensay observed when Belda limped the last few steps to his hut. She sat down hard next to him on the ground, leaning back on her arms and panting. Tensay looked over the death-gifts for a moment, then grunted and returned to his work.

Three clay bowls lay before him, all filled partway with melted animal fat. One had ocher mixed into it to make a red-brown paint, another had soot from burned bones to make black, and the third and largest had snow-pale clay to make white. These were the colors that Wenja wore when they returned to the earth in death, and only a shaman could apply them all without risking death themselves. A living Wenja could and would wear white paint to strengthen their spirit, or black to hide themselves from the evil spirits of Udam, Izila, and predator animals, but ocher was the blood-color, to be worn only by newborns and the dead. If a living Wenja other than a shaman was touched by all three, their spirit would leave them in an instant and their heart would stop.

Geldar took the travois and dragged it inside the hut, and Kella helped Tensay move the bowls of paint. Inside, Ulfa's body would receive its final preparations for her burial, and her spirit would be pacified. Belda was tempted to follow them, but hesitated at Kella's stern look; she didn't want to endanger her spirit. But surely just watching wasn't too perilous—and the worst Tensay could do was order her to leave.

Belda grabbed her crutch and hobbled into the hut.

Inside, Ull was still deeply asleep on the bloody mat, his eyes whipping back and forth beneath the lids in the grip of some dream. Had the henbane sent him to the spirit world despite Tensay's assurances? He wasn't twitching or moaning, though, which was a good sign. Belda crouched near his feet, and bit her lip when she saw that the shaman already had all three paints splattered over his fingers. He was tracing massive red and black spirals onto Ulfa's body, then interspersing them with white streaks that reminded Belda of lightning strikes.

Off to one side, Geldar was feeding cedar chips to the fire to create a pleasant-smelling smoke, and Kella was sewing the death-gifts to the burial tunic with an awl and strings of wet, flexible deer tendon. That was ordinarily a task for the family of the dead Wenja, but Takkar and Dakkar were digging the grave, Ull was asleep, and Sayla had apparently refused the duty. In a way, Tensay was kin to all the Wenja of Takkar's tribe, since he found their spirits as babies, so with no-one else it fell to him and his mates—and Belda. For whatever reason, the shaman had chosen to include the  _samipadi_ , and Belda couldn't decide whether to feel honored or suspicious.

"Soon," Tensay said, daubing branching white lines onto Ulfa's feet and then outlining them with red. Ull groaned, and his head lolled to the side. Tensay continued painting as the Wenja slowly dragged his eyes open. He looked around the hut, confusion wrinkling his brow, and his eyes widened in remembrance/understanding/horror when he saw Ulfa's painted corpse.

"How—" he rasped, then lapsed into a coughing fit. Belda filled a skull cup from the yak bladder and helped him sit up to drink.

"I bathe body of Ulfa," Belda murmured. "She received death-gifts."

"Good," Ull said. "Thank you." He couldn't see the burial tunic and how few death-gifts had been received. "Help me."

Belda loaned her friend her crutch so that Ull could get his feet under him, then limped after him as he exited the shaman's hut. He blinked hard in the sunlight, then shook himself and came fully awake. He sat down next to the stream, looking into the clear, cold water. Belda sat with him, mirroring their poses from the previous night.

"I dreamed," Ull said. He was fidgeting with the boar tusk again.

"What you dream?"

"Bones. Village made of Udam and Wenja bones, lit by sky-fires." He shivered, but not from cold, and looked up at the bright blue sky where only the sun and a few wisps of cloud were visible.

Belda sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, then shuffled closer to her friend so she could lean her shoulder against his. "Tell Tensay," she said.

"Later," Ull said. "After burial."

The two friends sat together for a time, watching the water and listening to the noise of the village going on around them. Men spoke of their hunts or the predicted harvest from Roshani's fields, women gossiped, children ran and played. It wasn't the noise of a village mourning one of its Beast Masters—that would come later, maybe, out of the villagers' respect for Takkar if nothing else.

At last, as the sun dipped towards the western horizon, Tensay emerged from his hut. "It is time to bury body of Ulfa," he announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wenja Glossary
> 
> Atta — dad/sir  
> Brashtar — brother  
> Dugishtar Karoosh-s — daughter of Karoosh; in Wenja, prepositions (in this case "-s") are placed after the noun they modify, which is the opposite of English  
> Dugishtar Takkar-s — daughter of Takkar  
> Samipadi — compound of "sami" (half/part) and "padi" (foot)  
> Shartahalchi — compound of "sharta" (injured/wounded) and "halchi" (elk). Speaking Primal deals mainly with verbs and doesn't delve into adjectives, so my inspiration for shartahalchi came from the original compound for "yak" ("dansu-gawi" or "shaggy-cow". However, in-game, a pared-down version of the compound is used instead).  
> Smarka — hello (informal)  
> Smarkaka — hello (formal)  
> U tushisni! — (imperative) silence!


	3. Gasti (n-stranger/guest)

The burial took place at dusk.

Bats wheeled overhead, shrieking as they hunted for insects through the evening air, hunted in turn by the first owls. The spirit of Takkar, the great horned owl, perched in an oak tree nearby as Tensay shuffled arthritically and chanted hoarsely through the death-dance that appeased the spirits and ensured Ulfa would sleep peacefully. Torches were lit as the light failed. There was little weeping.

There should have been more, though. Ulfa had served the village as a Beast Master, protecting and aiding the Wenja. She had been a loyal and valuable asset to the people who had adopted her—and now she was gone. Belda, standing next to Ull, watched the tears streak through the ash mask on her friend's face and noticed how few other Wenja had wet eyes. They were solemn, but not sad; they hadn't liked Ulfa enough to be sad. Belda's hands clenched into fists.

All of the Wenja stood in a circle around the trench into which Ulfa's body had been placed. Karoosh, standing across the circle from Belda, looked indifferent and even bored by the proceedings. Dakkar looked unhappy, but his eyes were dry. Kaddar, standing next to his mother, Sayla, wore an identical expression of faint contempt. Rage throbbed behind Belda's own eyes, stopping her from crying, and her nails dug into her palms. She wanted to yank off her shell bracelet and throw it into the trench where Ulfa was wrapped like a baby in the skin of her cave bear; this was not how Wenja treated one another! This was not right!

When she opened her mouth, however, no sound came out, and she couldn't bring herself to step forward and proclaim all of the anger she felt. She looked to Takkar, but the chieftain was not even watching Tensay—his gaze was towards the treeline. Belda wanted to hit him. For a moment, she glared, but then she followed the line of Takkar's eyes to the trees and saw... nothing.

But it was a nothing that didn't feel quite right. There was a prickling feeling at the back of her neck and down the edges of her arms, like she was being watched, and the treeline was... wrong, somehow. She had seen it every day of her life for fifteen winters, but now it was... different. Belda stared hard enough that her eyes started to water, and finally saw it: a flicker of movement from a bush that wasn't a bush. Instead, it was a woman wearing many shaggy skins that had had leafy twigs affixed to them, breaking up the outline of her body and concealing her.

Belda looked away from the woman to Takkar, who was watching  _her_  now. She could feel her face heating in a blush of embarrassment, but the chieftain only nodded to her. Tensay continued to move through the steps of the death-dance, chanting in a low, growling voice imitating a cave bear. Belda tried to pay attention, but found her eyes wandering back to the camouflaged woman. She remained crouched at the treeline, watching the assembled villagers and moving only with the wind that ruffled the foliage around her. She was so well-disguised that Belda's eyes tried to trick her, looking into the leaves and branches and taking several moments to find the woman's outline again after looking away.

Finally, Tensay came to a halt, and his chanting rose to a deep roar that sounded so like a cave bear it made Belda startle. The shaman fell into a coughing fit immediately after, however, collapsing to his knees and holding onto his staff for support. His mates rushed to his side to help him, and as they pulled the old Wenja upright Ull and Dakkar took up digging sticks and began folding the earth back into the trench over Ulfa's body. The burial ceremony was over.

The villagers started to drift away from the row of cairns, back to their huts and hearths, but Takkar turned towards the treeline. Karoosh walked over to join the man he called  _brashtar_ , carrying the spear he had made earlier with deliberate casualness. Belda started to limp after them, but checked when her father looked back over his shoulder at her.

"No," Karoosh said, at the same time that Takkar raised a hand to the camouflaged woman and called out, " _Smarkaka_. You are Wenja?"

" _Smarkaka_ ," the woman said, standing up so she could be clearly seen in the last of the dying sun's rays.

"We are Wenja," her companion said, standing up as well. Belda's eyes widened when she caught sight of the second woman who had been even more well-disguised than the first.

"We are—"

"—heirs of Jayma. We travel—"

"—many suns, searching for—"

"—village of Takkar," the first woman finished. They both spoke with odd, lilting accents that didn't come from Oros.

"I am Takkar," Takkar said.

"We are—"

"Jayla," the first woman said.

"Jayka," the second woman said.

They stepped out from the underbrush and came closer, moving in sync with one another and seeming to glide over the ground without disturbing a single blade of grass. Belda watched them with naked envy on her face. Karoosh's fingers flexed around the handle of his spear. The pair stopped a quarter-bowshot away, politely waiting to be invited within knife-range of the great Beast Master. At Takkar's nod they came to stand an arm's length away from him.

Belda stared at them with unabashed fascination. She knew there were Wenja beyond Oros, but had never met travelers from outside the valley. Aside from their accents and strange, shaggy outfits, however, Jayla and Jayka looked much like other Wenja: they had dark skin, brown eyes, flat noses, and were of average height. What was startling, though, was that the women shared one face; they looked nearly identical to one another, and the only way to tell them apart was from a small scar near Jayla's mouth.

Jayka noticed the younger woman staring and raised an eyebrow at her, and Belda had to resist the urge to duck behind her father like a shy child. "I... I am Belda," she said.

"You heard our names," Jayka said, then turned back to Takkar.

"You found village of Takkar," the chieftain of the Wenja said, "Why?"

"We carry message—"

"—of Jayma, who now—"

"—walks—"

"—free." At this word the two women performed a gesture that was foreign to Belda, touching the bases of their throats with the first two fingers of their right hands. Takkar dipped his head in sadness and performed the gesture that was more common in Oros: a gentle cupping motion with the dominant hand, waving it slowly towards the chest. Belda and Karoosh performed it as well.

"South of Oros," Jayka began, "Izila gather—"

"—along bank of Great River—"

"—near Knife Cliff. They—"

"—make village of villages—"

"—with many slaves. There are no more—"

"—free Wenja. The Izila come—"

"—to Oros."

Takkar said nothing for several moments, thinking. "My daughter's spirit sleeps this sun," he said eventually. "Come. Eat with us."

"Your daughter?" Jayka said, looking towards the cairn. Out of earshot, Ull and Dakkar were placing the last of the stones over the filled trench, Ull moving gingerly because of his wounds.

"We saw an Udam," Jayla said.

"Ulfa was my daughter," Takkar said in his deceptively soft voice. Belda couldn't remember Takkar ever shouting; his anger was never in his voice. Takkar merely spoke, and his words were law. He did not need to shout to be heard; instead, the Wenja quieted to listen to him. Jayla and Jayka must have heard some of the immovable granite in his voice, however, because they didn't press the issue. Instead, they looked at each other briefly, then back to Takkar.

"Yes," Jayla said.

"We eat with you," Jayka said.

" _Smarka, Atta_ ," Dakkar said, wiping the worst of the dirt off his hands. He looked at the two strangers and added, " _Smarkaka_."

" _Smarkaka_ ," Jayla and Jayka said in unison. Their eyes widened slightly when they caught sight of Ull coming to stand next to his hearth-brother, and Jayla's hand twitched towards her spear. The birth-son of the Udam warchief was massive despite his youth, and on the verge of outstripping even his Wenja father. With blood-soaked bandages covering his arms and an ash mask graying his face and hair he looked like something out of a nightmare. Belda waved to him cheerfully.

"These are my sons," Takkar said.

Jayla and Jayka were careful not to react.

" _Anna_  wants—" Dakkar began, eyeing the strangers.

"Tell Sayla we have guests this night," Takkar said. "Now."

"Yes,  _Atta_ ," Dakkar said, and trotted towards the cave. Ull hesitated, then followed his hearth-brother at Takkar's pointed look. Belda hung back, hoping to go unnoticed, but the chieftain looked at her and then jerked his chin towards the retreating figures of Dakkar and Ull. Belda swallowed a sigh and followed after them.

Around her, the village went through its evening rituals. Children played hiding and finding games by uneven torchlight or did chores for their parents. Some people were telling stories or singing, while others worked on crafts or prepared the evening meal. The smell of woodsmoke and cooking food perfumed the air.

Belda tried to look around with the eyes of a stranger, wondering what Jayla and Jayma thought. The village was large, boasting nearly two hundred Wenja, as well as prosperous and peaceful ever since Takkar had broken the power of the Izila and the Udam. Would the two lookalike huntresses be impressed, or would they think the Wenja of Oros soft-blooded for living fifteen winters—nearly half a lifetime—on the peace their chieftain had reaped?

" _Smarka_ , Belda," Srorka said. This huntress, who looked like nobody except herself, was carrying a rabbit carcass by the hind feet. Its crushed skull showed the killing weapon to be the sling tucked into her belt. Belda nodded politely, but looked past the other woman's ear rather than meeting her eyes. She was beautiful, whole-footed, and a hunter—everything that Belda wanted to be. And Ull was always staring at her and blushing when Srorka noticed him.

"Who are they?" Srorka asked, pointing towards where Jayla and Jayka were walking to Takkar's cave with the chieftain and Karoosh.

"Guests," Belda said. It wasn't a lie.

Srorka looked at Belda, waiting for her to say more, but when Belda didn't volunteer any further information she shrugged and walked away to the hut she shared with her father, Wogah, and mother, Drorda. Belda went to Karoosh's hut, flopping down in front of the fire and glaring at the flames. She poked the embers with a stick to make sparks swirl up into the air, but it didn't make her feel any better. Karoosh would spend the night in Takkar's cave, eating with the family of the man he called  _brashtar_ and regaling Dakkar and Kaddar with tales of hunts and battles long past. He would be momentarily able to forget the crippled daughter waiting alone for him, the one who would never be a warrior.

Belda moped for a little while, feeling sorry for herself as she bustled around the hut half-heartedly searching for something to do. There was a pile of dried reeds that could be woven into a basket, and some small river-snail shells she could bore holes into and sew onto pieces of clothing, and chunks of flint that could be knapped into knives or the blades of hand-axes or adzes. There were any number of things that could fill Belda's evening, but none caught the young woman's interest.

Eventually, Belda could stand it no longer and left the hut. Overhead, the sky fires burned and the second moon of autumn was waxing to fullness, and around her the villagers were gossiping about the two huntresses. There was a part of Belda that wanted to go to each fire and sit with the Wenja there, saying, "I know faces of Jayla and Jayka, I tell you of them," but bitterness drove her to keep to the shadowed lanes between the huts.

Only Wogah saw her and raised his half-arm in greeting, calling out, " _Smarka_ ,  _samipadi!_ " like he had done earlier that day. Belda raised her own hand to return to the gesture, but stopped herself from approaching when Srorka looked up from skinning her rabbit. Instead, she stepped quickly behind a rack of drying meat to get out of sight, and then continued walking. Her feet, both the whole and the half, took her to Tensay's hut, where she hesitated and touched the antler-piece for reassurance. It was warm to her fingers, perhaps from the rich spirit-energy surrounding the burial ceremony or else just from resting against her chest, and Belda stroked the grain of it before coughing loudly outside the skin covering the entranceway.

" _Nasta_ ,  _shartahalchi_ ," Tensay said hoarsely.

The shaman had once again called on her spirit. So commanded, Belda entered the hut.

Tensay was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in his white wolf pelt and drinking a cup of steaming liquid. Belda sniffed; it was spicy as well as minty, so was probably—

"Hyssop tea," the shaman said, nodding. "For throat. Voice of cave bear put claws there."

"I smell it," Belda said.

"You know herbs?"

"Some," she admitted.

"Shamans know all roots, all flowers, all leaves. We know all beast voices; we—we—" he broke off into a coughing fit, and Kella put a hand on his back. Geldar watched from a corner of the hut, not moving. "We speak in spirit-journey. Beast Master speak  _here_." He tapped the dirt floor of the hut with one gnarled finger. "Ulfa only speak cave bear. Takkar speak all four-legged flesh-eaters."

Belda sat down next to the shaman. "He no speak tall elk?"

Tensay shook his head. "Only flesh-eaters. Wolf, dhole, jaguar, leopard, cave lion, brown bear, cave bear, badger... all him speak."

" _I_  speak tall elk?"

Tensay shrugged. "Do you?" he asked.

Belda thought for several moments, then gripped the antler-piece and made several high-pitched barks of sound. It sounded almost like an elk fawn calling for its mother, but not quite. Tensay shook his head, then sipped his tea. He folded his hands around the cup in his lap, took a deep breath, then made several deep, grunting barks like a bull elk, the sound rising in pitch until it became a high, drawn-out squeal like a doe calling to its herd-members. Belda's eyes widened in appreciation; the noise had been so realistic it had sounded like a tall elk was right in the hut with them!

Tensay had another coughing fit, during which Kella glared at Belda.

"Tall elk voice... also claws," the shaman said when it passed. "No more. But you learn. You learn."

"...The  _samipadi_?" Geldar asked from his corner.

Tensay nodded.

"No!" Kella said, and Tensay hissed at her until she shrank away from him.

"What I do?" Belda asked, feeling fear clench in her stomach. Had she offended the shaman in some way, or committed some sort of indiscretion? Maybe she shouldn't have come here tonight, and instead pushed aside her frustration and just waited for Karoosh.

"I hear two strangers come to Oros," Tensay said, ignoring her. "You saw them?"

Belda nodded. "Two women, they share one face, they speak one voice with two mouths, they say Izila come to Oros again from... Great River."

"Great River is many suns' travel, far away," Tensay mused, rubbing his chin. "Where one-face women now?"

"Takkar's cave."

"Go,  _shartahalchi_. Watch with many eyes, listen with many ears, then speak me of one-face women.  _Haya!_ "

Belda jumped up from the fire and left the hut, walking purposefully towards the chieftain's cave through the darkness. She slowed, however, when she saw the firelight glowing in the cave mouth, and stopped entirely when she heard Karoosh let out a bellow of laughter. Her father was happy? He wouldn't be any longer if she came in. It wasn't too late to slink back to their hut like a wounded dhole and pretend to sleep on her pile of furs until he came back. Maybe that was the best thing. Maybe—

But no. Tensay had commanded her as  _shartahalchi_. A tall elk might balk at danger, but it would lower its rack of antlers and menace the pack of wolves that threatened it. It wouldn't run away. Belda touched the antler-piece hanging at her throat, then stepped into the cave.

" _Nasta_ , Belda!" Ull called, and Belda's heart immediately lightened. Why had she ever been afraid? She went to her friend and sat in the space between him and Kaddar. Sayla passed her a wooden platter of roasted cave bear meat with a smile. Prior to being killed, Ulfa's favored beast had been preparing for its long winter sleep by gorging itself on fall fruits, tubers, and nuts, and the dark meat was marbled with white streaks of fat. Belda's fingers and flint knife were soon dripping with grease.

"Good?" Sayla asked.

Belda nodded and made appreciative noises around a mouthful of cave bear meat, and the older woman smiled again. Sayla's only birth-daughter had been stillborn, and she had never mixed her blood with Ulfa's to formally adopt the once-Udam girl. After Grelda had died, Sayla had noticed Belda avoiding going to Karoosh's hut and spending long hours playing with Ull in Takkar's cave, and had taught her some of the ways of the Gatherer. Maybe that had been to spite Ulfa, who had had to teach herself (and gotten sick more than once in the process after eating poisonous leaves and berries), but Belda had enjoyed the lessons and benefited from them.

Karoosh spared her a glance, but then returned to his conversation with Takkar. They had their heads bent together, gesturing animatedly with handfuls of food, and were arranging bone shards on the cave's dirt floor to represent... something.

Belda nudged Ull, then jerked her chin towards the bone shards and raised an eyebrow.

"They plan mammoth hunt," her friend murmured. "Wenja need much meat for winter."

Belda had to stop herself from wiggling in place with excitement. A mammoth hunt! The most dangerous of all hunts, but also the most rewarding. Every part of a mammoth was useful: bones, tendons, organs, skin, tusks, teeth... Tensay would even use the eyes and heart to give himself spirit-dreams.

"You go?" she asked.

Ull nodded. " _Samipadi_  can help carry meat," he said. He meant it kindly, but Belda had to turn away regardless. She chewed on a mouthful of cave bear meat to spare herself from replying, but no longer felt hungry. Carrying the meat would be the only reason she would ever be included in the hunting party, and even then, being Half-Foot would mean that nobody but Ull would want her along. Belda looked into the flames of the central hearth and picked at her teeth with her flint knife, knowing it was bad manners to leave the fire and mope but wanting to nonetheless.

When she looked up again, Jayka was watching her. Belda flushed but resisted the urge to look away, instead returning the huntress's gaze. After several moments Jayka inclined her head briefly in greeting, then turned away to speak with Jayla. Were they sisters? Siblings often looked alike, but Belda had never seen a similarity as striking as that of the two huntresses. She remembered the mission Tensay had given her then, and wondered what it meant.  _Watch with many eyes, listen with many ears_. Belda only had two of each, and doubted that two counted as "many".

She nudged Ull again. "What you think of guests?"

Ull chewed and swallowed, thinking, then shrugged. "They only want talk Takkar. No talk Sayla, no talk Dakkar, no talk me. They want talk of Great River Izila."

"Why?"

"They travel many suns for just talk. Important."

Ull went back to eating after that. Belda mulled over his words, then asked the same question to Kaddar on her other side. The younger birth-son of Takkar deigned to notice her tapping his shoulder after he finished a conversation with his mother, and turned to her with a grumpy look. His expression soured even further when Belda repeated her question.

"They are not Wenja," he said—but softly, so that the huntresses couldn't hear. "They talk different, walk different, wear strange skins; they are spirit-demons... or Izila spies." His lip curled in distaste as he eyed the two women sitting across the fire. Belda resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Kaddar's spirit was the dhole, and he yapped just like one when he felt someone had upstaged him. But his words were true, in a way; Jayla and Jayka were very different from the Wenja of Oros, and might not necessarily be who they claimed they were.

 _Watch with many eyes, listen with many ears_. Ull understood that the women weren't going to discuss the details of their message with anyone but Takkar, and accepted them for who they said they were. Kaddar did not. Karoosh did not—he had pulled Jayla into the discussion of the mammoth hunt, and was gauging her trustworthiness by how she responded to his questions; Belda could recognize that measuring glint in his eye. But what of Takkar?

The chieftain had withdrawn from the mammoth hunt discussion and now sat slightly removed from the fire, watching his family and guests eat. His dark eyes flicked from face to face, missing nothing. Behind him, the cub of the cub of the Bloodfang lounged in contentment, chewing on one of the cave bear's meaty femurs. Unlike Ulfa's bear, the saber-tooth tiger was completely at ease with Wenja; it had been raised among them since infancy, and had been the playmate of the village children as a cub. Jayla's fingers gave a slight twitch every time the tiger's fangs grated loudly against the bone, however; she was clearly ill at ease with having the predator so close. Takkar could have ordered the great cat to eat outside his cave, but had chosen not to. Did he  _want_  to make his guests uncomfortable?

The answer rose unbidden in Belda's mind. Jayla (and possibly by extension also Jayka) didn't seem accustomed to Beast Masters, and keeping them in awe of Takkar's powers might make them less able to lie to the chieftain if they tried to do so. Belda chewed her lip, watching Takkar. What did his eyes and ears tell him? Did he suspect the two huntresses were enemies, as Kaddar did? Or was he inclined to believe them? It was impossible to know without asking, and Belda couldn't. She ate slowly with many thoughts swirling through her mind as the meal winded down, and accepted another helping of cave bear meat from Sayla to take home.

She left Takkar's cave and returned to Tensay's hut. Kella glowered at her as she entered, but seemed somewhat mollified when presented with the platter of meat. Geldar merely nodded to her.

The old shaman had been dozing in front of the fire, snoring softly. He woke when Belda cleared her throat next to him, and groaned as his joints crackled when he stretched.

"What you learn of one-face women, _shartahalchi_?" he asked.

Belda opened her mouth, then closed it. She stared into the fire, thinking, and finally spoke: "They are afraid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wenja Glossary
> 
> Anna — mom/ma'am  
> Atta — dad/sir  
> Brashtar — brother  
> Haya — (exclamation) go/march/go forth  
> Nasta — (exclamation) welcome/greetings  
> Samipadi — compound of "sami" (part/half) + "padi" (foot)  
> Shartahalchi — compound of "sharta" (wounded) + "halchi" (elk)  
> Smarka — hello (informal)  
> Smarkaka — hello (formal)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter of the fic! All feedback is adored. I'm curious to hear any theories about Jayla and Jayka, and what you thought of Tensay and Belda's interaction.


	4. Kalha (v-to name, to claim)

Tensay arched an eyebrow.

Belda sat down at the fire and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She stared into the crackling flames rather than look at the shaman's wrinkled face, and fidgeted with the edge of her leopard fur.

"They want Takkar... they want him see them as Wenja, believe their words as Wenja..."

"They are not Wenja?" Tensay asked.

Belda shrugged helplessly, beginning to feel overwhelmed. "They are hunters from far away," she said. If Belda lied to anyone and said her name was Srorka, Karoosh would know it was a lie, because he was her father, and so would the rest of the Wenja of Oros, who had known her since before she could crawl as a baby. But Jayla and Jayka could say they were anyone, and there would be no-one who would necessarily know the truth.

"Can you see their spirits?" Belda asked.

"Jaguars," Tensay said. He frowned at her, as though Belda should have known. "They wear tooth-necklaces," he added.

They did. Belda had seen but hadn't thought about the edges of the strings of smallish cat-teeth gleaming around each of the huntress' throats.

"Do they lie?" Belda asked.

"I no give them spirits as babies," Tensay said, shrugging. "I no know their hearts." He frowned and rubbed the white stubble covering his chin, thinking, then said: "I must dream on this. Go,  _shartahalchi_. Sleep this night."

"Sleep good," Belda wished him as she stood up. The shaman merely grunted as he shuffled to where a dried jaguar paw was hanging from the point of an antler rack mounted to the wall. She lingered for a moment, long enough to watch the shaman give himself two shallow scratches on his left wrist with the claws and crawl to his sleeping furs, then left the hut. She shivered and wrapping her fur tighter around her in the cold wind of the night that blew through the village.

Belda made her way to Karoosh's hut. Her father let out a growl of annoyance from his sleeping furs when she lifted the brown bear skin and allowed a draft of cold air to swirl into the hut as she entered, but made no other greeting. The fire had already been banked down to barely-glowing embers for the night, and Belda navigated her way to her own sleeping furs by feel. She curled up on top of them, closed her eyes, and was asleep within minutes.

Belda did not have a spirit-dream of Jayla and Jayka. Instead, she dreamed of Ulfa playing with her and Ull as children, but then transforming into a cave bear and roaring with anger. The cave bear chased her through what started out as Takkar's cave, except it now had a maze of confusing, twisting tunnels. Belda ran, panting and limping badly, through the labyrinth of stone, hearing the cave bear getting closer and closer. She was  _samipadi_! She couldn't run fast enough! She was crying with fear as she ran through the dark, but the cave opened suddenly to a sunlit plain. A white mammoth, as massive as a mountain, trumpeted in rage and reared up on its hind legs, preparing to crush her beneath its mighty feet. Behind her, the cave bear roared again.

Belda woke up thrashing against her furs, her chest heaving. She squeaked in fear and pulled her leopard fur over her head when she saw the figure standing over her, but then realized that it was only her father, Karoosh. Embarrassed, she pulled the fur below her eyes and peaked out at him.

"Sorry, sorry," she said. "I wake you with dream?"

Karoosh nodded and rubbed his eyes with one hand. There was a little bit of gray light gleaming in the cracks between the brown bear skin and the wall of the hut. Dawn would be soon; there was little point in going back to sleep. Belda left her pile of furs and began the process of making a morning meal.

There was clay pot filled with hulled emmer wheat that had been pounded on a flat stone to produce a coarse, grainy flour. She mixed some with water to form two lumpy dough cakes, then added pieces of dried apples picked from the orchard near the village. The fruit trees grew wild throughout Oros and the Wenja already knew of their autumn bounty, but it had been Roshani's idea to take cuttings from the trees and plant them where they would grow more conveniently. Belda cooked the cakes on a stone next to the fire, nudging them as close to the embers as she dared and turning them as each side started to brown. Karoosh warmed the meat he had received from Sayla the previous night, and the two ate in silence for a time.

"What you dream?" Karoosh demanded eventually.

Belda paused in the act of licking grease off her fingers. "White mammoth trample me," she said cautiously. It would be better not to mention Ulfa around her father; she already knew his thoughts about the once-Udam woman.

Karoosh grunted. "You no hunt," he said.

"I know," Belda replied, nodding. "Maybe... I carry meat?"

Karoosh gave her a long, slow look with his remaining eye, taking in Belda's pleading expression, then sighed and shrugged. "Talk Tensay of white mammoth," he said, and Belda's shoulders slumped. She had a feeling that if the shaman knew her dream he would forbid her from accompanying the hunters, even for something as mundane as helping carry the meat.

But what if she didn't tell Tensay and saw the white mammoth from her dream during the hunt? What if the dream was a warning from her spirit? Worries and fears sank claws into Belda's mind as she cleaned up after the morning meal. Eventually, she could stand it no longer and left the hut.

The dawn bloomed pink and gold over the eastern mountains. Belda squatted next to the hut, watching the sunrise and feeling the village come to life around her. Wenja left their huts and unbanked their hearths, blinking and yawning in the sunlight. A group of children started a game, kicking around an elk bladder that had been stuffed with dried grasses to form a ball. Belda watched them, feeling a distant pang of the jealousy she had felt as a young girl watching the other children play their rough-and-tumble games without her. That had been before she had befriended Ull, who had been too happy to have a playmate at all to mind that she was  _samipadi_. He still didn't mind, maybe even less than Belda herself.

Perhaps her friend would show her the spear-sling today! Belda's mood brightened just thinking about it. There was work to do first, however.

She took her crutch and a basket and went to the orchard. It was early enough in the day that there weren't any other pickers, but also late enough in the season that most of the low-hanging fruit had already been taken. The last apples were high in the trees, dangling bright and red amidst the green foliage. Belda looked up at them, biting her lip, then looked around. She wasn't very good at climbing—but she was also truly alone in the orchard.

Emboldened by the lack of eyes upon her, the young woman leaned her crutch against a nearby trunk and awkwardly swung herself up into the branches. She moved gingerly, lacking toes to help balance on her half-foot, and clutched hard at the branches with her hands. Her stump, not enjoying the rough bark and rounded surfaces of the boughs, quickly began to throb in protest. Belda ignored it and began picking apples, dropping them into her basket. She wasn't as quick and agile as her peers or even the younger children, who played in the trees like a screeching pack of monkeys, and had to grit her teeth in concentration so as not to fall.

The biggest, reddest apples were at the very tops of the branches, where the boughs became slender wands that bowed and shook beneath Belda's weight. She cautiously moved higher, her teeth clenched so tightly that her jaw was starting to ache, and reached for the biggest one. Her fingers brushed the fruit's red skin but couldn't grasp it. She took a half-step closer, then heard a loud  _honk_  from the river that made her almost lose her balance and fall out of the tree. Belda wobbled dangerously, but managed to grab the apple and toss it into her basket.

She parted the leaves and looked out towards the water, and saw that a flock of gray-feathered geese in the midst of their annual migration had settled at the river's edge. One goose stood guard over the flock and looked all around for predators, while the rest plucked grass with their beaks or else dabbled for water-weeds. Belda's mouth started to water just looking at them. She climbed down from the tree, trying to move as carefully and quietly as possible, then broke into a lopsided, limping run back towards the village.

"Denoo! Denoo!" she said, calling out to the first person she saw. The son of Manoo and mate of Gorlah didn't look up from knapping a new edge onto his flint hand-axe outside of his hut. The stone axe-head was very brittle, and too much pressure at a weak point could cause it to shatter into pieces. He made one careful blow with a round, fist-sized hammerstone, causing several flakes to break away and create a thinner, sharper edge, and only then gave Belda his attention.

"Get bow, Denoo!" Belda said in between panting breaths. "Geese at river!"

She lingered long enough to see the crafter's eyes widen, then ran past him to Karoosh's hut. She grabbed a large, sturdy net made from braided grass stalks and reeds, then limped back towards the river. Her stump was hurting almost as badly as it had the day of the burial ceremony and she had left her crutch in the orchard, but she was too excited to care. Denoo had vanished from his own hut when she went past, and was nowhere to be seen in the orchard when she reached it. Belda dropped down into a crouch in the tall grass at its edge, watching the geese, and gave her antler-piece a quick squeeze for luck.

She crawled toward the flock guardian, knowing she wasn't moving quietly enough. The ground softened beneath her feet and hands as she approached the river's edge, and water leaked through her foot-wrappings. The goose was already looking in her direction when Belda emerged from the tall grass, and it honked a warning to its flock when it caught sight of her—but it didn't try to take flight. Instead, Belda and the goose eyed each other for a moment, Belda in silence and the goose hissing aggressively.

Crouched down, Belda looked smaller than she really was, and the goose spread its wings to make itself appear larger. It honked loudly and charged the young woman with beak and wings outstretched, preparing to defend its flock.

Belda stood up and threw the net over it. The goose tripped over the cords, entangling itself, and the young woman jumped on top of the large bird. A wing bone audibly cracked beneath her weight, and the goose screamed in dismay and pain. The rest of the flock, honking in distress, took flight. Three arrows flickered out of a neighboring patch of underbrush in quick succession, one missing its mark but the other two plunging deep into feathery bodies. Two geese tumbled out of the sky to land in the river, and Denoo swam out to retrieve them.

Belda, meanwhile, wrestled with the netted goose. It thrashed beneath her, beating at the woman with its unbroken wing and jabbing hard with its beak through the netting. Eventually, Belda got hold of the goose and wrung its neck. The body went limp and Belda sat back in the mud, panting hard. Denoo waded out from the river holding his own two prizes.

" _Smarka_ , Belda Goose-Killer," the woodworker said. Belda flushed with pleasure, the tips of her ears turning red beneath her mass of braids. Her first kill! And she hadn't even thought about it! Denoo grinned at her, then reached out to poke an already darkening bruise on her arm from where the goose had struck Belda with its wing.

"Hunter's wound," he said, and Belda laughed in delight and pride. She stood up and hefted the dead goose. It was larger than Denoo's geese, she noted, and was therefore probably a mature male—perhaps the patriarch of the flock. It weighed a little more than a newborn baby in her arms.

She moved to drier ground and began plucking the carcass. The primary flight feathers at the ends of the wings would make fletchings for arrows, and the soft, insulting down at the breast would make a good stuffing for a cushion—or swaddling for a baby. Belda set those feathers aside for Gorlah; maybe a gift would make the older woman warm to her a little bit. The rest of the feathers were discarded. Belda cut off the bird's head and feet with her flint knife, then opened the abdominal cavity and cleaned out the organs. The liver she ate raw, the best part of any animal that was usually reserved for the hunter who had made the killing strike—which Belda had done. The raw flesh was chewy and bloody in her mouth, and she savored each bite. The heart she buried deep with her digging stick as a tribute to the spirit of the tall elk.

 _Belda_  had killed the bird,  _Belda_  had cleaned it, and  _Belda_  would cook it into a wonderful meal to share with her father. She could already envision the carcass stuffed with apples, berries, and herbs, then wrapped in wild grape leaves and slowly roasted in a pit of coals. It was hard to imagine Karoosh ever being proud of her, but surely he would be when he learned of her first kill. All parents were proud of their child's first kill. It was hard for Belda not to dance with joy as she put the cleaned carcass on top of her apple basket and returned to the village.

She traded the gray flight feathers to Mulka, whose spirit was the gray goose and who liked to fletch her arrows with such feathers, in exchange for spear shafts. These were not the long, slender javelins that could be thrown with ease, but straight, heavy lances meant for taking down large game at close range.

"Next kill is rhino,  _samipadi_?" Mulka asked.

Belda was still too delighted with herself to search the woman's words for an insult. She smiled and shook her head, then returned to Karoosh's hut. Her father wasn't home, which didn't bother her—she would surprise him with roast goose tonight, and tell him the story of netting and fighting the goose as they ate her first kill together. He would be proud of her. He would. Belda was sure of it.

Belda dug a pit large enough for the goose, then filled it with wood and lit it with a splinter from the hearth fire within the hut. It would take at least half a day for the wood to burn down to coals, so she stuffed the abdominal cavity and wrapped it with leaves. She secured the leaves in place with four arm-lengths of thin leather cordage, then set the bird aside.

She took more, even thinner cordage made from deer sinew and set it in a bowl of water to soften and expand. Next she began using the spear shafts to lay out sleeping platforms for herself and Karoosh. There were four corner posts for each, and lashed against them perpendicular would be four more shafts to make the outline of the platform—if the sinew would hold. Belda removed it from the water and tied it against the shafts, then held it in place as it dried and shrank into position. She hummed a hunting song to herself to help pass the time, casting the occasional glance towards either the goose carcass or her fire pit.

The process of tying and holding the sinew as it dried would have to be repeated at each corner post. If only there was a way to avoid the use of sinew altogether, to just  _force_  the two shafts against each other and keep them there. The waiting was tedious; if banging them with her hammerstone would help, Belda would do it.

She repeated the song and began playing with the lyrics, adding new words but trying to keep the rhythm. She tapped her half-foot against the hut's dirt floor, bobbing her head and unconsciously raising her voice above a whispered chant.

" _We are hunting Gray Wolf—hey! We are hunting him to-day_ ," Ull sang along, strolling into the hut. Belda startled and faltered, then grinned. They finished the song together, ending on a long howl that a group of children playing outside picked up. They began yipping and chasing each other as they pretended to be wolves, and Belda smiled as she watched them through the doorway.

" _Smarka_ ," Ull said, sitting down next to her. "I hear Denoo say Belda is hunter now."

"Belda is  _great_  hunter. She killed Father Goose of flock at river."

"Will Belda share Father Goose meat?" Ull asked, nudging Belda. She nearly fell over, then gingerly loosened her grip on the sinew. It remained in place, so she let go of it entirely and flexed her fingers.

"Maybe," the woman said, smiling slyly.

Ull groaned in hunger and clutched his belly.

Belda smacked his arm. "Greedy Wenja! You eat everything if you could!"

Ull held up his hands in mock-defense. "I feed spirit!" he protested, "Boar-spirit always hungry, so hard to live with."

Belda sniffed in disdain, then gave up her pretense of anger. She wiggled in her seat on the floor in excitement and recounted the tale of sighting, netting, and battling the goose, with Ull listening raptly.

"Good goose voice," he said at the end, nodding. Belda honked several more times, trying to curve her tongue the right way and make the noise partly through her nose. It was hard, but after what Tensay had shown her the previous night she was eager to learn the voices of all the great animal spirits. Would she communicate with them in the spirit world one day? That made her pause, but then she discarded the idea as too far-fetched. Belda Half-Foot, speaking with the great spirits in their own world? Ludicrous. But a huntress making birdcalls and animal noises to disorient and lure her prey toward her... Belda could envision herself doing that.

"Karoosh visit Tensay, now Tensay want talk you," Ull said.

Belda froze.

"Why?" she asked.

Ull shrugged. "Geldar no say why." He handed his friend her crutch.

"Thank you," Belda said, for the crutch—and for everything else. Ull's sister had died two nights ago. He could have stayed in Takkar's cave, kept company by his grief, but had chosen to come singing to his friend's hearth to listen to her first hunting story.

Ull forced a smile onto his face, and Belda could see the pain behind his eyes. She hugged him. Ull returned the embrace and used it to lift her to her feet without any apparent effort, then nudged her towards the doorway. " _Haya_ ,  _samipadi_ ," he said. "No make shaman wait."

"No eat Father Goose while I go," Belda retorted, tucking her crutch under her arm. She left the hut, looked over the fire pit with an experienced, critical eye, and added another log. It would still be a long time before the bed of embers was ready. She dallied at its edge, warming her toes through her foot-wrappings, but knew she couldn't put it off any longer. She squared her shoulders and went to visit the shaman's hut.

Tensay was eating a meal of meat broth and wild yams softened through boiling when Belda arrived at his hut. Geldar was eating strips of seasoned and roasted cave bear meat, and Kella was drinking a dark, soot-colored liquid from a skull cup. She glared at Belda over its edge when the younger woman entered and sat down next to the shaman.

"Spirit of Kella is horse," Tensay murmured in lieu of a greeting. "She drink horse marrow and chasteberry tea to make strong spirit for baby."

"You are pregnant?" Belda asked, her eyes widening.

Kella shook her head. "No, but..." and her eyes had a rare, soft vulnerability in place of their usual fierceness, "I hope," she finished. The fierceness flooded back when Kella closed her mouth, and she unconsciously lifted her chin slightly in defiance, daring the younger woman to make a snide remark. All the village had heard Kella's wails of pain and grief at her three previous miscarriages. She had started to have the reputation of an unlucky woman, one cursed by the spirits for some unknown misdeed, before mating Geldar and Tensay.

"I hope too," Belda said politely.

Kella grimaced and took another sip from her skull cup.

"How you dream white mammoth?" Tensay demanded.

Belda told him the story of her dream, and the shaman hissed softly, clearly uneasy. " _Shartahalchi_  dream white mammoth,  _platutwarcha_  dream bone village... spirits whisper wisdom," he murmured, though whether to Belda, his mates, or merely himself was unclear. He turned his cataract-clouded eyes towards Belda, who drew back slightly.

"You must not go mammoth hunt," he said.

Belda gritted her teeth and bowed her head so that Tensay couldn't see the frustration on her face. The shaman reached over and pushed her chin up so that Belda was forced to look at him, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. She had killed the goose! She was a hunter now! It wasn't _fair_ that Tensay barred her from the mammoth hunt.

"Spirit of Ulfa is angry at village," the shaman said. "She speak mammoth-spirit, maybe bring doom on Wenja hunt. Only luckiest hunters go."

"But—"

"You no go mammoth hunt, _shartahalchi_. I speak this."

"Not even carry meat?" Belda whispered.

"No. You can stay in village, learn beast voices, learn herbs, is much to—"

Belda jumped up and fled the hut before Tensay could see her cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wenja Glossary
> 
> Haya — (exclamation) go/go forth/march  
> Platutwarcha — compound of "platu" (large/broad) + "twarcha" (boar)  
> Samipadi — compound of "sami" (part/half) + "padi" (foot)  
> Shartahalchi — compound of "sharta" (wounded) + "halchi" (elk)  
> Smarka — hello (informal)
> 
> Note
> 
> In previous chapters, the cereal grain grown in Roshani's fields was millet. This has been changed to the slightly more historically accurate emmer wheat.


End file.
